A flash of silver was all there was before the constriction and impenetrable darkness claimed them. He felt a twinge of pain and seconds later they were strewn about on the shore of a beach, a quaint cottage a few yards away with the rising morning sun winking behind it. He was kneeling in the shallow water, having lost his equilibrium for a moment. Slowly he moved to his feet as the others began calling out. Pain. Sharp pain as he drew one rattling breath after another.
"Dobby, is this Shell Cottage? Have we come to the right place, Dobby?"
He couldn't speak, the pain had stolen the ability, it was hard enough for him to draw those agonizing breaths. Harry Potter turned to look at him and it took only a second before they both realized something was very wrong.
"DOBBY!"
He looked down, hand moving to the hilt of Bellatrix's knife. Strange, how lethargic his movements seemed. He always moved so quickly with any sort of task. Yet the movement of his hand now was as if he were mired in a swamp.
"Dobby – no – HELP!"
Though he was only mere feet away, Harry Potter's screaming seemed so muffled. Strange, these sensations. The only strong constant was the pain, slowly spreading throughout his small body.
"HELP!"
He changed his mind about the knife, instead reaching out both his thin little arms toward the first creature who had ever given him love and understanding. The first wizard to treat him like he was worth something. He faltered and began to collapse, but the young man before him caught him easily and carefully, lovingly, laid him down on the soft, cool grass not far from the shoreline. The pain was fading now, he felt better.
"Dobby, no."
And now he felt cold. So very cold in that tiny little frame, though somewhere in his heart, he felt that warm, never-ending love- that magnificent gratitude to The Boy Who Lived. Never had he ever felt happier than the moments in which he was called upon by him. The agony he could see in the boy's eyes saddened him. He hated to see such sadness. It was his only job, now, to make him feel happiness.
"Don't die, don't die –"
Numb. He was numb in all places, save his wildly erratic heart. The heart that felt such warmth at the wondrous waves of love and acceptance washing over him from-
"Harry…Potter…"
He shuddered once more, and everything was gone. No Harry, no golden-pink morning sky. No sound of the surf lightly lapping the shore, nor the soft sounds of grief the wizard made over his remaining body. All was forever silenced, but that was okay. For even though it was a sad goodbye, Dobby knew he had been significant, and loved by those he had loved with his entire small self, and that was all that mattered to him.
~FIN